Shock of the old

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The words of that well-known Canberra art critic, Tony Abbott - "avant-garde crap" - have been heeded: Parliament House's art collection is to be revised backwards. Following a controversial review, new guidelines for acquisitions to the $85 million collection have been announced by the President of the Senate, Paul Calvert. These include dropping the preference for purchasing works by living artists; this is to satisfy the likes of Mr Abbott and his fellow Liberal MP, Ross Cameron, self-described philistine, who campaigned against Parliament's contemporary collection. In a measured response, he called the revisions "a victory over this little clique of correct, highbrow, holier-than-thou, 'you-must-like-this-shit' brigade". No doubt, Mr Cameron et al will not be bothered by the slight matter of future traditional art being reproductions and not originals. Perhaps, with a gentle landscape or William Dargie portrait on their walls, the appeased aesthetes will have more time for democracy than art politics. Dare we bring to their attention the fact that the Federal Government has underwritten an Impressionists' collection described in its own avant-garde day as "an insult to the taste and intelligence of the public" and "a frightening spectacle of human vanity"? This disgraceful art is at the National Gallery of Victoria.